


You Might Even Like It

by VoiceOfNurse



Series: Dance Like Nobody's Watching [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: BAMF Darcy Lewis, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Can be read as Bucky/Darcy or platonic, Clint needs Coffee, Dancing, Deaf Clint Barton, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Music, Tony Stark is a troll, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-02 03:23:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6548647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VoiceOfNurse/pseuds/VoiceOfNurse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Darcy is fearless, Bucky is confused, and a good time is eventually had by all. </p><p>"He wasn’t sure how her alarming mortality translated into dancing, but she was the first person he could remember having honest, uncomplicated faith in him, and the song playing did have a good beat."</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Might Even Like It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OMOWatcher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OMOWatcher/gifts).



> Written for my lovely friend OMOWatcher, who prompted me this one. I give you the P!nk fic that generated the mental image Twerking Cowboy Clint.

Tony Stark was a study in affluence. Arrogance. Both. He certainly had the largest and most needlessly elaborate tower that all of his considerable fortune could buy, with more than enough space for the collection of misfits that it now housed. Despite this, however, some strange energy always seemed to draw Bucky into rooms that were occupied, regardless of the arguable excess of space. He could have been alone, but for some reason it never actually came about. He wasn’t quite ready to admit that he sought out the company, instead choosing to blame it on chance.

Thor was spending time with the Doctor that had taken his fancy; she had arrived the previous evening with her friends and promptly vanished somewhere. Tony had made more than one off-colour remark about having to redecorate after they were done getting reacquainted, but despite his complaining there hadn’t actually been any suspicious noises. Bucky had wondered, privately, if they were working on some sort of magic/physics codex rather than having the sex marathon that everyone assumed Doctor Foster had come to visit for. 

The other Doctor, an older man who had a strange, twitchy familiarity with Clint and the sort of expression that Bucky didn’t like to think too deeply about, had ensconced himself in the labs with Bruce. Bucky wasn’t sure what they were working on, but he never really was when it came to Bruce and his experiments. The whole area made him uncomfortable, and he tended to avoid the labs at all costs. 

He apparently wasn’t the only one. Darcy had proclaimed herself to be ‘on vacation’ and had flat-out refused to join in with any research, which was probably why she was stretched out on a beanbag in front of the entertainment center, dark hair a wild tangle and arms flying as she sang along to whatever was playing on the television. The performance was obviously reaching its climax, if Darcy’s wild, upside down flailing was any indication, and on the screen the slightly tinny, recorded crowd were screaming in delight. Bucky wasn’t familiar with the song, but the little voice that popped up at random in the back of his head chipped in that you couldn’t do a Lindy Hop to it. Some days, he even remembered what that was. Some days, he remembered how to dance, and just occasionally he woke up with the certainty that he liked to dance more than he liked to kill. 

“You don’t have to keep standing in the doorway like some creepy assassin stalker, you know. It might not have occurred to you, but you can come and sit down and watch the movie. Or, you know, don’t stare at the back of my head like you’re about to stab me. It’s freaking me out.”     

It had been a long time since someone had dared to make that sort of flippant comment around him. Tony had, back when Bucky had first come to the tower. Unfortunately for all involved, Bucky had been on a hair trigger back then (arguably, he wasn’t all that much better now), and he’d had Tony up against a wall with a knife to his throat before anyone had really registered what had been said. 

“Maybe I am a creepy assassin stalker.” It was probably a testament to how far he’d come that he could joke about it; Bucky found it oddly freeing, and that feeling was enough to take him further into the room. He stood beside Darcy’s beanbag, not close enough to touch just in case, but definitely there with her rather than hanging on the periphery.

Darcy laughed, squirming to the side and reaching out a lazy arm to poke his leg. Bucky had to wonder, not for the first time, what sort of people she associated with, that jabbing the Winter Soldier in the leg seemed like a safe thing to do. Then again, it was entirely possible that she was insane. Her choice of film certainly suggested as much. “What the fucking hell is that guy wearing?” 

“Oi, watch it, Mr Assassin. I’ll have you know that Jimmy is amazing in every way, including his dress sense. Anyway, you need to listen to what he’s  _ saying _ , not obsess over what he’s wearing.” Darcy thumped the floor beside her in a gesture that said  _ sit down and shut up _ louder than words possibly could. Bucky had recently triumphed in the field of not following orders, progressing to the stage where he could tell someone to fuck off when they asked him to do something he didn’t want to. Darcy, however, was hard to refuse. 

It was Shakespeare, and sex, and a guy dressed like God alone knew what, but once he got watching Bucky found it oddly compelling. It resonated with a part of him; innuendo, leather, and near-inappropriate conversation about love. “You see what I mean now?” Darcy asked, as the man on stage seemed to speak directly to Bucky, to that part of him that warred with itself about what was right and what was wrong.   

“Yeah, I think I do, actually.” The crowd were screaming again; a woman was spiralling down from the ceiling, spinning artistically between dark ropes. He imagined Natasha; a deadly ballerina, a spider. The performers had such control of their bodies, but for them, every move was met with adoration from thousands of spectators. Nobody bled. Nobody died. These people could so easily have used their talents differently; they weren’t really so different to Bucky, save that they were idolized, rather than infamous. 

Darcy was grinning at him, still upside down with her head hanging over the edge of her beanbag. Her face was flushed from the position and her earlier enthusiastic dancing, glasses slightly askew. “Some music these days is just about what it sounds like, but the rest of it has a real message in there somewhere. I guess music videos help with that, actually. Songs can be a bit more random, so people can bring their own meanings and stuff. Granted, there are so many blogs online arguing about the ‘real’ meaning when the artist doesn’t just flat out and tell everyone to stop the drama. Not that it works; diehards, you know?” 

“Not really?” Bucky was too interested watching the ballerina land into the arms of her dance partner, as together they enacted some private battle. There certainly was a meaning there, but for someone who still struggled saying no when Steve offered him porridge in the mornings, the idea of fighting on the internet about the interpretation of song and dance seemed far-fetched. 

“It’s real, trust me. The internet is a scary place, filled with scary people. I should know, I read the fanfiction people write about you guys.” Steve still got a bit flustered when modern girls wagged their eyebrows with that sort of insinuation, Bucky just snorted.

“So does Tony. He did a dramatic reading at breakfast the other day. I thought Stevie was going to pop a blood vessel.” Clint had finally driven Tony away, laughing like a jackal, by throwing breakfast muffins at him. Not that it had worked for long; apparently Tony had been able to access Clint’s hearing aids remotely and pipe his voice in that way. 

There was a rustle as Darcy fought her way upright, looking at Bucky with a mixture of disbelief and delight. “You’re serious? Tony Stark reads dirty fanfiction about you all? Out loud? At  _ breakfast _ ? That’s incredible! Do you think he’ll do it while I’m here? I want to get a recording of it and put it online!” 

“I think his lawyer would probably have something to say about that. Miss Potts as well, actually.” Nobody could scare Tony into submission quite as quickly as Miss Potts; Bucky was eternally thankful that Hydra had never gotten their tentacles on the woman. She had the power to take down the Avengers without so much as chipping a nail. She reminded him of Peggy, on the days he could remember her, stunning and lethal in a red dress. Steve with stars in his eyes and pockmarks on his shield from where she’d shot him in a temper.  

Darcy didn’t seem in the least afraid. “Pepper? She’s a kitten. A fire-breathing kitten with really sharp claws, granted, but still a kitten. Ooh, hey, I love this bit!” She pointed at the screen, where the performers were swinging each other around the stage with a careless sort of grace. They made it look effortless, for all that it took absolute precision and hours upon hours of training to achieve. 

“I’ve always wanted to be able to dance like that, but it’s like climbing over a fence on TV, you know?” 

Bucky blinked, momentarily distracted from a rather vivid mental recreation of the performance with himself and Natasha in the place of the dancers. “What?” 

She looked at him like he was the crazy one, rolling her eyes. “I forgot, you’re a freaky supersoldier. Well, normal people can’t just leap over fences. Even small fences. I know, I’ve tried. I ended up getting stuck, covered in splinters, and I twisted my ankle coming down. Seriously, though, everyone can climb over a fence on the TV. It’s a complete lie, though.” 

“I’m pretty sure people can climb over fences. I’ve seen Clint climb up the side of a building, and he’s not a supersoldier.” 

“He doesn’t count.” Darcy shook her head, one finger pointing accusingly at Bucky’s face. “He’s a spy for a super secret government agency that can just walk into your place and steal your iPod. Not to mention the whole surviving a superhero battle with just a bow and arrow thing. Normal people rules clearly don’t apply to him.” 

Bucky wasn’t sure what a normal person rule actually was, but he supposed that Darcy did have a point. For someone who apparently had no enhancements or special powers, Clint was alarmingly able. Bucky saw Clint as the only normal human in the team. Natasha was too much like Bucky himself to be anything but Other, and the rest all had physical or prosthetic enhancements of some kind. Clint, though, somehow managed to keep up with them all. “You haven’t seen him fall out of the vents yet, or pour coffee all over the counter rather than in his mug.” 

“No-no-no, don’t ruin it for me, Mister! Leave me alone with my delusion that I suck at things because that’s what normal people do!” It was surprisingly easy to make Darcy happy, even if her version of happy seemed to come with a heavy side order of yelling and gesticulating. Bucky wasn’t entirely sure how he was managing it, but it was a good feeling all the same. 

He blinked. “Wait, you want me to tell you that you suck?” Bucky was pretty sure most people wanted to be told that they could do anything that they put their minds to. He’d certainly been told something along those lines often enough during his recovery. 

Darcy was laughing again. “You’re funny, and awesome. Actually, you’re the same sort of firm badass as him.” She pointed at the male dancer on stage, who was currently lifting the woman over his head. Bucky could see the subtle strain on his muscles, the places where the effort was hidden, but to a layman it would probably look effortless. He’d been trained to kill like that man had been trained to dance; with absolute precision and heavy emphasis on disguising the hard work that it took. “You should totally dance with me.” 

Bucky had been right earlier; Darcy really was insane. “You… want to dance… with me?” He’d been thinking about executing someone not ten seconds ago, and she wanted to dance with him. 

Rather than looking at all afraid, Darcy just shrugged and reached for her iPod. “Yeah, I mean, why not? You’re big enough to make up for how much I’m going to suck, and you’ve got all that supersoldier strength. The last guy I tried to dance with dropped me, but he had arms like twigs, so it’s not like I’m even surprised. But that’s not the point. The point is you’d be awesome at it, and I’m terrible but it’s fun. So we should dance.” 

“Aren’t you scared?” Even Steve looked a little bit afraid of him on occasion, and they were relatively well matched in a fight. He could quite literally snap Darcy in half; it wouldn’t even be a challenge. 

“Of what? You dropping me? Stepping on my feet? Granted, I’d rather you didn’t do that. Combat boots, my bare toes- not a good mix. But you’re better than that, right? You wouldn’t stomp on me with your great big boots.” She was actually picking a song, linking her iPod to the television’s powerful speakers. 

Bucky didn’t- couldn’t- understand. “You want to  _ dance  _ with the Winter Soldier?!” 

That made her look up, but only for a minute before she went back to the music. “Well, yeah. I mean, why not, right?” There was a note of confusion in her voice, like Bucky was the one being astounding. Like it was a perfectly normal request, and most people didn’t shy away from him. 

“Why aren’t you afraid of me?” It made absolutely no sense. She was well versed in social media, and Bucky knew that the whole internet was rife with opinions about him. He hadn’t been allowed to look in the beginning, and had chosen to keep it that way once he’d been cleared to go online. He knew the sentiment, though. It wasn’t hard to guess what the world thought of him; even the people who felt sorry for him were terrified of what he was capable of. Like a dog trained to fight let loose in public. 

“You’re just a guy.” Darcy was, for once, totally serious and looking right at him. Her iPod sat forgotten, nestled in the beanbag. “Sure, you’re pretty strong, and you have a cool metal arm, and could probably kill me ten different ways with a popsicle stick, but so what? Jane’s pretty much married to a god. Who has a flying magic hammer and can shoot lightning. The first time we met him, we got attacked by a laser-eyed robot, had a bunch of alien-god-warriors turn up for a fight, and a secret government organisation stole all our stuff. Then he vanishes off and comes back with dimension ending, aliens invading and destroying the planet, spaceships digging up the asphalt crazy chasing him. I guess you’re just not that impressive.” 

Bucky supposed, when she put it like that, it made a little more sense. “But I could kill you.”  It wouldn’t even be difficult. 

Darcy just shrugged. “Well, obviously. But so could some random on the street with a knife. I could get shot, or hit by a car, or more aliens could come and get me with their heat vision. It’s not like I could do anything to stop you if you wanted to kill me, anyway. My taser wouldn’t work on you. So, we might as well dance.” 

He wasn’t sure how her alarming mortality translated into dancing, but she was the first person he could remember having honest, uncomplicated faith in him, and the song playing did have a good beat. Hesitantly, poised to spring away if she flinched, he reached for Darcy’s hand. Miraculously, she didn’t pull away; in fact, she did the complete opposite, giving Bucky a gentle tug to get him moving as the song ramped up into the same insane rhythm that she’d been flailing to when he’d arrived. 

Darcy wasn’t lying when she’d said she was a bad dancer, but what she lacked in talent she certainly made up for in enthusiasm. It probably helped that she was totally unashamed, jumping up and down, hair flying and glasses rocking precariously down her nose. It wasn’t, and would never be, a Lindy Hop, but that was probably what made it okay. The Old Bucky never would have jumped up and down with an eccentric young woman and called it dancing, and the Winter Soldier never would have seen the point in something so imprecise and functionally worthless.

Bucky, though, with his PTSD and his anxieties and all of the everything else that made his life such a mess? He found it rather liked it.   
  


**Author's Note:**

> It's completely my headcannon that Darcy loves P!nk and dances terribly to her songs.


End file.
